The U.S. dollar has fallen about 9 percent in the past three months, according to an index that tracks its performance against a basket of major trading partners. Not since the 1970s has the currency performed so badly in a president’s first 100 days.
The drop isn’t surprising. The U.S. economic outlook is far cloudier than it was on Inauguration Day, as President Trump’s tariffs set the stage for slower growth and higher inflation. U.S. assets look far less attractive now.
But could there be something more existential afoot? Questions are swirling about the dollar’s global standing and whether after more than seven decades as the world’s most important currency, it’s on the cusp of shedding that status.
Trump’s policies and his threats to longstanding norms like the political independence of the central bank have prompted a rethink among investors about how much more exposure they want to have to U.S. assets. That skepticism looks likely to endure. “Something is in motion that is irreversible,” said Jens Nordvig of the research firm Exante Data.
There are obvious caveats. Just because the dollar is weaker now doesn’t mean it has lost all its primacy. A sudden shift away from the United States still seems far-fetched because there are few places to go.
“The rest of the world is eager, if not desperate, to reduce reliance on the dollar as a payment and reserve currency,” said Eswar Prasad, a former official at the International Monetary Fund who is now an economics professor at Cornell University.